THE 100 GREATEST BOXERS OF ALL TIME #7: JACK JOHNSON

“THE GALVESTON GIANT”

53 WINS (34 BY KO), 11 LOSSES, 7 DRAWS, 17 NO-DECISIONS

World Heavyweight Champion 1908–1915

International Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee 1990

In a time when Jim Crow abuses were at their worst in the American South, Texan Jack Johnson got revenge for his people against America’s racist white establishment time and again in the ring. His victories over white opponents inspired millions of downtrodden African Americans in the days of segregation and overt systematic racism, showing them that it was possible to challenge barriers, demand parity, stand up to injustice, and emerge victorious.

Those victories, many of them against some of the best prizefighters of all time, would not have happened had Johnson not been a tremendous fighter, near unbeatable in his prime. He was big for his day, powerful, and quick. But his greatest asset was his boxing I.Q. He perfected every defensive technique in the book, was a cunning ring strategist, and a master of psychological warfare.

Since the inception of boxing, the heavyweight championship had belonged exclusively to men of the white race, and the white power structure and white fans saw no reason to allow a black man a chance to change that fact, establishing what became known as the “color line” across the heavyweight division.

Forbidden his deserved chance for years, Johnson instead took on the other top black heavyweights locked out of the championship. He won the so-called “colored heavyweight championship” in 1903 from Denver Ed Martin and held it for five years, successfully defending against the likes of Sam McVey, Joe Jeanette, and Sam Langford, all of them now in the Hall of Fame. He beat the best white contenders as well, cleaning out the division of any viable challenger until champion Tommy Burns caved to a then huge $30,000 payday and agreed to face him.

By the time Johnson got his shot at the championship on December 26, 1908, he was likely past his best at 30 years old. Yet, he easily and quite playfully batted champion Burns about like a cat would a mouse’s corpse until the police stopped the fight.

Most of his title defenses would prove just as easy. A year after embarrassing Burns, he flattened middleweight champion Stanley Ketchel in the twelfth, afterward having to wipe the unconscious Ketchel’s teeth off his glove. In 1912, he so frustrated contender Fireman Jim Flynn that the enraged Flynn got himself disqualified for fouling.

Most famously, Johnson became the only man to defeat James Jeffries, the former champion who had retired in 1905 but returned as the “Great White Hope” to take the title back. On Independence Day, 1910, Johnson toyed with Jeffries as he had Burns, finally stopping the faded legend in the fifteenth once he got bored. The result of this match, publicized like no previous boxing event, sparked race riots throughout American cities, leaving dozens of dead, most of them black.

Johnson savvily if unfairly imitated his white predecessors by avoiding McVey, Langford, and Jeanette after he won the world title. Following seven years and nine successful defenses, he finally lost the championship to 6’ 6 ½” Jess Willard, knocked out after 26 rounds of fighting underneath the scorching Cuban sun in 1915. Johnson would later claim he took a dive in that match because he was tired of the vitriol and harassment that came with being a black champion. He fought on and incredibly did not lose another fight until he was 48 years old. He finally hung up the gloves at age 53 in 1931 as arguably the single most historically important athlete in history.

Jack Johnson’s record vs. Hall of Famers & lineal world champions:

2/25/1901 — L (KO) 3 — Joe Choynski

10/31/1902 — W 20 — George Gardner

2/26/1903 — W 20 — Sam McVey

10/27/1903 — W 20 — Sam McVey

4/22/1904 — KO 20 — Sam McVey

3/28/1905 — L 20 — Marvin Hart

5/9/1905 — No-Decision 3 — Joe Jeanette

11/25/1905 — L (DQ) 2 — Joe Jeanette

12/2/1905 — No-Decision 6 — Joe Jeanette

1/6/1906 — No-Decision 3 — Joe Jeanette

3/14/1906 — W 15 — Joe Jeanette

4/26/1906 — W 15 — Sam Langford

9/20/1906 — No-Decision 6 — Joe Jeanette

11/26/1906 — No-Decision 10 — Joe Jeanette

7/17/1907 — W (KO) 2 — Bob Fitzsimmons

12/26/1908 — W (TKO) 14 — Tommy Burns

5/19/1909 — No-Decision 6 — Philadelphia Jack O’Brien

10/16/1909 — W (KO) 12 — Stanley Ketchel

7/4/1910 — W (TKO) 15 — James Jeffries

4/5/1915 — L (KO) 26 — Jess Willard